## Facts

- Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. (Columbia), a signatory employer to the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Basic Agreement (BA), filmed and produced the motion picture *Deceptions* in England.
- After Columbia fired the original director, Columbia negotiated with Robert Chenault, a DGA member, to take over directing duties.
- At the time of those discussions, Chenault was already in England working for Columbia as a post-production producer on a different film, *Jenny’s War*.
- Columbia had hired Chenault in the United States for *Jenny’s War* and then transported him to London.
- Chenault agreed to direct *Deceptions* after negotiations among Columbia, the DGA, and Chenault’s agent.
- Although some conversations occurred in the United States, the formal negotiations were conducted and completed in England.
- After finishing work on *Deceptions*, Chenault sought compensation under the BA’s pay-rate terms.
- Columbia refused, contending that Chenault’s directing employment was outside the BA’s geographic scope because *Deceptions* was produced in England and Chenault was hired in England.
- Columbia maintained that the BA generally applied only within the United States and that any limited exceptions to the BA’s territorial language did not apply on these facts.
- The DGA initiated arbitration against Columbia on Chenault’s behalf, arguing that BA coverage existed because (1) negotiations for Chenault’s engagement partly occurred in the United States and (2) Chenault’s presence in London resulted from Columbia’s prior U.S. hire and transport of Chenault for *Jenny’s War*.

## Issues

1. Whether Chenault’s directing services on *Deceptions*, performed on a production filmed and produced in England, fell within the BA’s geographic scope or a stated exception to that scope.
2. Whether U.S.-based communications concerning Chenault’s engagement, even though the final negotiations were completed in England, were sufficient to bring the engagement within the BA.
3. Whether Chenault’s London location—caused by Columbia’s prior U.S. hire and transport for *Jenny’s War*—affected the BA’s application to his later engagement on *Deceptions*.

## Decision

- The Directors Guild of America Producers Arbitration Tribunal issued an arbitral award resolving the DGA’s grievance against Columbia concerning whether the BA applied to Chenault’s work on *Deceptions* and, if so, what compensation terms controlled.
- Publicly available summaries describe the dispute and the parties’ positions but do not provide the full text of the award or a detailed statement of the relief ordered.

## Legal Principles

- A collective-bargaining agreement’s territorial language can limit coverage to work performed in specified locations, while also allowing coverage beyond those locations if the agreement contains defined exceptions.
- In a coverage dispute involving foreign-location work, relevant contract-interpretation facts may include where negotiations occurred, where the engagement was finalized, and how the employee came to be working abroad (including employer-arranged transport connected to other employment).
- A signatory employer may contest coverage by showing that the place of production and the place of hiring fall outside the agreement’s stated geographic reach and that no exception applies.
- A union may argue for coverage by pointing to U.S. contacts connected to the engagement and to the signatory employer’s role in placing a member abroad in a way tied to the parties’ ongoing labor relationship.

## Conclusion

This arbitration arose from Columbia’s refusal to pay DGA Basic Agreement rates to DGA member Robert Chenault for directing *Deceptions* in England, with Columbia relying on the BA’s U.S.-territory limitation and the DGA relying on partial U.S. negotiations and Columbia’s earlier U.S. hire and transport of Chenault to London; the tribunal resolved the resulting BA-coverage and compensation dispute by arbitral award.


In the Matter of the Arbitration between Directors Guild of America, Inc. and Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. Relating to “Deceptions”, Case No. 01799 (1986)